Answers pending at Tri-Valley school

Grahamsville — As New York City TV station satellite trucks gathered outside Tri-Valley High School today, the district administration hunkered down.

Heather Yakin

Grahamsville — As New York City TV station satellite trucks gathered outside Tri-Valley High School today, the district administration hunkered down.

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox were there because they had heard about protests students had staged after they heard a security guard had asked a girl if she had her period. Kids wore tampons and maxi pads on their clothes. Girls fashioned tampon boxes into necklaces or purses.

Parents got angry.

It all started with the high school's new policy banning backpacks or any bag large enough to hold a textbook from the hallways, except at the start and end of the day.

Last week, high school Principal Robert Worden and security guards Mike Bunce and David Drown went around to classes. They called students with bags into the hall and asked them to stow the bags in their lockers. But one girl, Samantha Martin, 14, a freshman, says Bunce told her she couldn't carry a purse unless she had her period — and then he asked The Question: "Do you have your period?"

Kids and parents believe a few other girls also were asked The Question.

Vern Lindquist, whose daughter Hannah, 14, spoke to Worden on behalf of her classmates, said he talked to the city media to make sure parents and school officials weren't portrayed "as gap-toothed yokels."

"The administration needed to do something, and they didn't, and this is what happens," he said of the media circus.

Superintendent Nancy George vowed Thursday to talk to parents and students. The media frenzy put a damper on that.

"I have not talked to parents today. I'm sure that there's probably messages waiting for me," a weary George said today. "We'll follow every lead, speak to every student that wants to talk to us, staff members. We'll make a decision when we've heard from all sides."

At the Grahamsville Deli, Joe McKenna said he'd be upset if someone asked his daughter that question. "I think it's pretty disgusting, someone asking a little girl that — if it's true," McKenna said. But he added, "I honestly think he (Bunce) probably didn't mean any harm from it."

As school let out, the media lined Route 55 by the school.

Jesse Horos, 17, a senior, said kids are frustrated by the bag restrictions and The Question.

"That's just privacy. There's no reason they should ask that," he said. He said it seems like the school is trying to sort things out over the past few days.

"I was pretty upset when I heard the question they were asking people," senior Rose Hurley-Weitz, 17, said.

"Kids aren't afraid to stand up for themselves anymore. We made good progress (on the backpack issue) at the board meeting (last week)," she said. "They're trying to fix it, but they're still not taking responsibility."

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